ands, but if there
were no such complete adherence and only temporary observation of the
second article, after the war had resulted in the disruption of the
United States, thus removing the chief supporter of that article, Great
Britain would feel free to resume her old-time practice when she engaged
in war. If Great Britain made a formal treaty with the United States she
would feel bound to respect it; the Declaration of Paris as it stood
constituted "a mere agreement, which was binding, as Lord Malmesbury
declared, only so long as it was convenient to respect it[256]." Thus
the second article of the Declaration of Paris, not the first on
privateering, was in the eye of the British Cabinet in the negotiation
of 1861. Henry Adams ends his essay: "After the manner in which Russell
received the advances of President Lincoln, no American Minister in
London could safely act on any other assumption than that the British
Government meant, at the first convenient opportunity, to revive the
belligerent pretensions dormant since the War of 1812[257]."

This analysis was published in 1891. Still more briefly summarized it
depicts an unfriendly, almost hostile attitude on the part of Russell
and Lyons, deceit and evasion by the former, selfish British policy, and
throughout a blind following on by France, yielding to Russell's
leadership. The American proposal is regarded merely as a simple and
sincere offer to join in supporting an improved international practice
in war-times. But when Frederic Bancroft, the biographer of Seward,
examined the negotiation he was compelled to ask himself whether this
was all, indeed, that the American Secretary of State had in view.
Bancroft's analysis may be stated more briefly[258].

Seward's general instruction, Bancroft notes, bore date of April 24,
nearly a month before any foreign Power had recognized Southern
belligerent rights; it indicates "a plan by which he hoped to remove all
excuse for such action." In despatches to Dayton, Seward asserted a
twofold motive: "a sincere desire to co-operate with other progressive
nations in the melioration of the rigours of maritime war," and "to
remove every cause that any foreign Power could have for the recognition
of the insurgents as a belligerent Power[259]." This last result was not
so clear to Dayton at Paris, nor was the mechanism of operation ever
openly stated by Seward. But he did write, later, that the proposal of
accession to the Declarati